Hacking Public Memory

Abstract

This article uses a case study of the multiple arcade machine emulator (MAME) to insist that emulation is an important aspect of digital game culture that should not be dismissed due to copyright concerns. The author argues that emulators should be understood as ludic technologies produced by hacking practices that helped spawn and continue to permeate video game culture. Furthermore, while it may be tempting to describe the MAME as a “counter archive” that challenges institutional models of preservation, by drawing on the work of Coleman the author insists the project is better understood as a hacking practice committed to reordering “technologies and infrastructures” (p. 515). From this perspective, instead of rejecting institutional archival perspectives that view documents as truth-telling entities, the project hacks the traditional notion of the archive by treating platforms as contingent entities and game code as authentic artifacts.